


When husbands go astray.

by hornblowerfic_archivist



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-31
Updated: 2004-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:30:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hornblowerfic_archivist/pseuds/hornblowerfic_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A declaration of love wrapped in silk</p>
            </blockquote>





	When husbands go astray.

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Hornblowerfic.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hornblowerfic.com). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in January 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [Hornblowerfic.com collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hornblowerfic/profile).

To Hornblower, a man well seasoned with responsibility for a ship and the trust of his crew, the world was still a place that baffled. Despite the pains he always took to live according to the principle 'nosce te ipsum', he often felt that knowing Horatio himself sometimes just wasn't enough. There were many things outside, things that refused to fit in, things that disturbed, and annoyed, and unbalanced. Dry land was perhaps the epitome of all that.

The land was the one which always turned life upside down. Even such a simplicity as daylight behaved eerily here: it seemed to be soaking in, as if sponged up by the rich snow, instead of going upwards like it did in the open sea where it was thin and white and forever reflected back to the sun even on the grayest of all days.

And the traps it set, the land, this tangle of grassy roots, fragile and almost non-existent when seen from afar and yet so, so strong and enmeshing when you came nearer! The subtle ties of renewed responsibilities, the implicit conventions, the 'dos' and 'don'ts' of unspoken customs - they all weighed him down, distractingly. The dry part of the earth was an extraneous layer that intervened wherever it pleased without asking for permission.

In the evanescent and suddenly all too dear memories of the doings on the last mission, recent but already growing distant, he was puzzled to admit that he had come to love the sea. He still could see no point in the exalted admiration that the new vogue called Romanticism preached: the waves, and the gales, and a full power storm usually hid their romance well, given that they had any. Perhaps the trick was to look at them from ashore - something he had never done for pleasure, his seaward-directed lookouts always being professionally practical.

"Captain, sir!"

His feet got caught in the deep snow as he stopped abruptly at the loud hail. In this part of town, far from the harbour, he didn't expect any familiar encounters. This district was safely removed from anything maritime, its shops and shingles smelling of peace, and home, and wives, and domesticity. It was a place where children were left out to play safely with their mothers sure that the boys wouldn't run to see the ships sailing off. A place from which any mention of war, or casualties, or failures had been purged, and the only flags that were ever hoisted were the good women' bonnets hung out to dry.

Further down the street, ploughing his way through the snowy fluff, was William Bush, his face beaming with a smile of earnest joy. Despite all discretion, Hornblower felt his own mimics reflect Bush's like a mirror. Here, where every house looked like a small fortress designed to keep quiet domestic chaos in and the naval orderliness out, meeting the man from his own quarterdeck was like getting hold of a life buoy. If anybody could look any more stranded than him, it was certainly his officer, and that was strangely assuring.

"Funny that our ways should cross here, sir," Bush noted innocently, almost impolitely pleased. "Of all places, sir."

Before that statement, Hornblower realized with a start, he had hardly been aware of his surroundings. The houses, the signs, the brick-brown and snow-white everything was a shapeless line on either side of the road, and there was noise, and trade going on all around, and if the letters on the signs spelled into any coherent words, he wouldn't be able to tell even at the point of a gun.

"The Draper's, sir," Bush was helpful to particularize.

"Oh. Absolutely, Mr. Bush. A most unusual meeting place, of all possible." Hornblower fell silent considering he had said enough, then added, again despite himself. "But the occasion is indeed capital."

The door opened in a shop across the street, wrapping them momentarily in an aromatic cloud of freshly baked bread and comfort. His coat spotted white with big, unhurried snowflakes, Bush was standing still, curiosity embodied. Hornblower looked back at him. Bush's brow displayed a certain intention to rise.

"Ah. Yes, I... I'm here to..." Simple English words resisted being put together to form a simple English phrase. "We were late for Christmas. I thought that Maria might like a little present, even if belated."

"That is most considerate of you, sir. I'm sure Mrs. Hornblower will be delighted." Bush made a vague gesture that was meant to encompass the street, the whole district that was a symbol for settling down. "The deep rewards of life, isn't it?"

"And the timely pay."

"Indeed, sir, that's right."

A cart struggling past made them pause as they watched it edge into the curve of a lane and farther off, till it was swallowed by the ice-misty bowels of the streets. In spite of the original gladness, they both felt the conversation was turning more and more awkward.

"So, Mr. Bush, what wind brings you here?"

Bush smiled feebly, as if some tender spot on his body had been revealed.

"It's my sisters, sir." The reply made Hornblower curse mentally at his being so thick: indeed, his officer had a house full of women, so it would be only natural that he... "Every time I come back, they seem to multiply, and so does their interest. I can't afford to come home empty-handed - that would be simply unsafe."

Hornblower turned to look at the shingle above them. The sign, and the shop window, beautifully bedecked to lure in first and foremost the female customers, were a source of a hundred little irrational fears. Where was his invincible determination that had always helped him through even the toughest of battles? He was afraid, humiliatingly afraid, to cross the doorstep, to dive into a world that was shielded from all the far horizons...he wondered if Bush ever felt the same and if he would ever muster courage enough to ask his First Lieutenant about it, and admitted that the answer had to be 'no'.

"The choice may be a problem in these places," Bush remarked civilly, mysteriously tuned in to his Captain's thoughts.

Inside, Hornblower realized that Bush couldn't be more right with his forecast. It was a miniature kingdom of luxury and banality, a warning that every good sailor must recognize. Fine lawn that felt like a morning chemise of a happy spouse; delicate muslin of frocks, dawn-coloured in the light that seemed filtered and alluringly pure; warm-looking flannel that smelled of babies and night caps; crochets and quilts; cashmere and merino, yards and yards, enough to wrap and tie a potential husband as securely as the anchor moors a ship. The eye felt assaulted by the variety of colours, and for a moment Hornblower staggered, disoriented.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" The shopkeeper, the king of this yarnland, wove himself into presence behind the counter. Complete with a suave smile on the facade, the smile that was clearly emphatic, almost grotesque, he surely was teasing the strange, lost customers about their ability to differentiate his goods.

Hornblower felt his face blush at the question. With rare diplomacy Bush withdrew to study the samples a way off, but still the distance wasn't big enough to muffle the ill-omened words his captain was to say, unless he chose to whisper.

"I, eh...fancied something suitable for a pair of new...bed sheets." He stumbled over the word and his voice faltered and cracked like a boy's.

"I see. Is the gentleman fortunate to have a better half?"

"Uh, yes. Yes." Hornblower firmly decided to ignore the deep, almost subterranean implications in the shopkeeper's tone. But the effort of it: hurt pride and real dismay, and a bad premonition of impending exposure, oh when did he last feel such a fool?..

"Any preference as to the fabric, sir?"

"No idea," Hornblower said honestly, which was an understatement.

"Has the lady perhaps expressed any particular wishes?"

"Not really." Instantly Hornblower's mind pictured a denuded Maria sprawled on the satin sheets, and the world went dead for a heartbeat. "No."

"I assume the best choice would be done by help of an experiment. In the other room, I have a display of all samples available. The gentleman may take his time acquainting himself with them."

In the mentioned other room, the abundant variety was irrational. Why anyone would need a selection of seemingly identical designs and textures, was to Hornblower beyond all logic. Trying to impart a nonchalant swagger to his step, he defiled through the aisles, among lengths of fabric hung on the props, hugging the chairs, draped over couches, so warm and colourful and inviting to repose.

He, only an attendant husband even at the best of times, felt clearly that this redundancy was making a deep chink in his cherished armor of disinterest. The room (an alcove? a wide spread bed? the underside of a hussy petticoat?) denied euphemisms; his stare fell on two lengths of fine tender muslin - the sacred pair, the utmost weapon of man's destruction - and he wanted to flee.

"Quite a selection, sir," Bush chirped behind him in the doorway, thus blocking the possibility of escape.

Obviously without realizing what a brave thing he was doing, Bush entered the room, crossing the course of Hornblower's fretful voyage. The solidity of the dark uniform was a touchstone of truth, a reinforcement, a patch on Hornblower's split shield: where one felt defeated, two were already an army.

"One is almost tempted to say," drawled Bush, curiously and waveringly, "that the milieu is extremely...suggestive."

Dismayed, Hornblower admitted that his mind was full of those very words, but not the courage to voice them. A confirming nod was almost above his powers; elaborating was an impossibility.

"Rituals," he said and wondered if it really were his lips that moved. "And rites."

"Interesting way to put it, sir," with a furrowed brow, Bush digested the phrase. "Mrs. Hornblower would be pleased by such reverence."

The mention of his honourable spouse brought the captain back on track. His thoughts suddenly cleared of anxiety, in a revelation of objectiveness, he confessed to himself that no imagination, however stretched, would picture Maria in such surroundings. He would have to compromise. He would have to see the goods of the shop not as a temptation but as an aid, a brace on the faltering framework of his marriage. He would pile up his defences and build a Babel of means and tricks, silk and lace included, until his pyramid of self-illusion would reach a degree of beauty and advantage that would make life bearable. He had failed to use his opportunity of free choice in the gift that is marriage; but now, at least, he still could choose the wrapping.

A few yards of pearly-coloured fabric were draped over a sofa, flowing in a million of tiny folds of seeming intensity that was ready to yield. Its softness neared indecency; it seemed to possess a character of its own, a nature of true sensualist, everything that Hornblower was not. No matter what item of furniture it was spread on, it made it look like an empty shell without a human body to fill it, to crease the fabric's smoothness, to warm its silken surface.

"Mr. Bush," Hornblower beckoned with sudden determination.

"Oh, exquisite! You've made a fine choice, sir. Mrs. Hornblower..."

"Will not receive her present until I've made sure there are no flaws. Things may look reasonably well in artificial surroundings like here, but one can never know how...Mr. Bush, may I ask you to sit down on this sofa?"

Bush complied with perfect accuracy, as if he were taking a seat on the throne to which he was a usurper. The fine textile seemed to whisper as it rubbed against the rougher fabric of the naval uniform. The ideal smoothness had departed; the pearly folds seemed to be moulding themselves into a new shape, all dimpled and cosy.

"This feels...great, sir," declared Bush, running a testing hand over the covering.

Suddenly eager, Hornblower reached out to try the feel of the fabric for himself. Cold, detached, impersonal, and unexpectedly warm where Bush's hand had just traveled; he wanted to linger on that spot. It was impossible to stop caressing this clean surface: a continuous glide, a pause, and the resolution when finally his and Bush's fingers overlapped.

He wanted to apologize. He did not. The silk had tainted his mind, provoked a difference of opinion on the unanimously decided subject. He was feeling boldly, gallantly perverse, full of triumphant disgracefulness. His reason had slipped away from him, slid off the icy silk, got lost somewhere between seams and cuts.

"What are you doing, sir?" Bush sounded totally ruined, and yet, paradoxically, glad of it. A welcome hopefulness, a greedily desired degradation - even if there had been anybody to appeal to their common sense, his words would have been muffled, curtained off by the soft fiber.

The silk was pliable and supple under the double weight of their palms; their intertwined fingers got caught in the folds, pulled the length of fabric to slide off the sofa's back and to foam over Bush's lap. Hornblower wanted to bury his face in this lustrous froth, but to do so, he needed to kneel.

It seemed natural, almost. He bent down low, so low that he became faceless, his flushed cheek pleasantly cooled by the glossy material. Underneath the softness, the firm outline of Bush's thigh could be felt; he pressed his cheek against it, rubbed it along the contour, losing dignity and concentration on the way. Had he gone mad? He wanted to ask that question aloud and was immediately afraid of the answer.

This room, the shop, the whole dry land was a mess; he was a mess. He felt bad, ashamed, unclean, being on this side of the wrong that unexpectedly felt so right.

"Please, don't stop," begged Bush suddenly, from above.

He looked up, coyly. With his head tilted back, in a surrender that seemed a result of some deep willful decision, his hand beating time to Hornblower's movements, Bush - William - looked almost surreal, his mind traveling far away into unexplored distances while his whole body pulsed forward in some primal hope.

Obscenity, thought Hornblower. Love, thought Horatio.

"My love," said William Bush, the incautious naval officer.

It was worse than drowning, both pleasing and hurting horribly; a terribly personal perpetual torture that would never end. Leprechaun's gold, a twisted Christmas gift that he would never be able to return or repay, all the more bitter since he felt appallingly glad at having received it. He might rave out in ingenuous indignation; he might pretend he didn't hear.

"I think...I think I will take these ones, after all," he mumbled, rising to his feet.

"Very well, sir," Bush echoed; his own armour, no matter how battered, still held.

***

Unwrapping the parcel with impatient, trembling fingers, Maria seemed uncharacteristically responsive. Her eyes, growing darker and softer, were intense: for the following few moments there was going to be no outer world, no violence, no despair and none of those wars that always threatened to come and snatch her husband away. In the low rays of the wintry setting sun, she seemed gilded with happiness.

"Oh, Horatio, I never..." She seemed hesitant to trust that such pleasures could become a way of life. She was like a small girl in the nursery, waking up on the Yule-tide eve, all drowsy and hazed, to find the room had been filled with glitter and presents while she slept. "This delicate rosy colour, it will always remind me of my dear husband!"

Hornblower nodded, feeling benevolent and smug. Maria, his house-proud, placid Maria wasn't the kind of wife that went on curiosity-driven inspections of her husband's ship. She minded only her home and her children; she never minded the captain's cabin, and least of all, the new pearly silk sheets that now adorned it. Of which, there was really no need to tell her.

*End*


End file.
